Month`s Reprieve In Store For Lytton

Planning Begins On Office Renovation Project

Henry C. Lytton & Co. received a one-month reprieve Monday on the closing of its Loop department store as planning began on a major renovation that would transform most of the old store to offices.

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge delayed Lytton`s closing to Feb. 28 from Jan. 31, according to Hersch Klaff, president of Klaff Realty Ltd., a Chicago development firm recently retained by the building`s owners.

While Lytton`s winds down its ``going out of business`` sale at 235 S. State St., the architectural firm of Braun-Skiba Ltd., Chicago, is drawing up plans for a rehab of the 18-story, 300,000-square-foot building that the retailer has occupied for the last 40 years.

Lytton`s closing will make available approximately 163,000 square feet in the basement and on the first eight floors.

``Construction probably will begin in the late spring or early summer,``

Klaff said. ``The initial phase will involve a major renovation of the basement and first and second floors for about 50,000 square feet of multitenant retail space.

``Then we`ll build out the third through eighth floors for office users . . . and finally renovate the 9th through 18th office floors,`` Klaff said.

Tentative plans also call for cleaning the building`s exterior and restoring the office lobby at 14 E. Jackson Blvd. First new occupancies are expected next fall, with the entire project to be finished next year.

Prospective retailers include national fashion chains that may have entrances off State Street and selling areas downstairs or on the second floor.

Klaff declined to estimate how much the redevelopment would cost. He said the project probably would be underwritten by West German businessmen Henri Brauner and Jacob Gutman, who bid $1.35 million at an auction last August to buy out Lytton`s lease.

Lytton`s filed for protection from creditors in March, 1984.

In a last-ditch effort to reduce operating costs, Lytton`s auctioned off its lease so it could shrink its State Street store to 50,000 square feet. However, a bankruptcy judge last September handed over Lytton`s to its largest creditor, Maurice L. Rothschild & Co., for liquidation.